In a bid to draw budget-minded iPhone fans, Apple debuted its new iPhone SE for 2020 for $399(₤419, AU$749). The brand-new iPhone SE’s specifications and appearances are similar to the iPhone 8 from three years ago, which is most likely the reason that the tech business announced it would cease its 2017 flagship on the same day.
When it initially debuted, the iPhone 8 expense $699, but the rate decreased to $449 prior to Apple pulled the plug on it. Nowadays, you can still get the phone from third-party sellers for even less ( Walmart, for instance, is offering it brand-new for $349 on Straight Talk). If you’re thinking of purchasing the iPhone 8 over the iPhone SE 2020 at that price, don’t. The iPhone SE might share many of the iPhone 8’s specs, but for $50 more you’ll get more mileage out of a phone that isn’t going to be 3 years old out-of-the-box. (And if $399 is definitely out of your spending plan, consider shopping for even less expensive phones)
If you need more reasons, however, let’s stroll through both models and discuss why the iPhone SE is the smarter purchase.
Apple
Though it shares lots of key specs, the brand-new iPhone SE still has a couple of upgrades that make it better than the iPhone 8. If you’re looking for a cost effective new iPhone from a trustworthy seller with current support, the iPhone SE is your best bet.
Sarah Tew/CNET
If you currently have a well-functioning iPhone 8, there’s no factor to upgrade to a new iPhone SE if you can help it. But if you’re tempted to purchase a new one, do not. In addition to the iPhone SE 2020 upgrades you’ll be losing out on (which I noted above), there’s the possibility that software updates from Apple and client support from wherever you purchase your iPhone 8 might not be as robust on a 3-year-old device than on a new one. It’s difficult to position a tangible monetary value on things like trustworthy iOS updates, a robust return policy and a possibly greater trade-in worth, it’s worth paying a bit more for those functions. (Speaking of trade-ins, Apple is using $170 off the iPhone SE if you kip down your iPhone 8.).
Required to get more particular? Here’s an extensive walkthrough of how the two iPhones accumulate.
Design: Both iPhones are almost identical, however …
Unlike the iPhone SE and the iPhone 11, which look various even at a glance, the iPhone SE and the iPhone 8 appearance reasonably the same.
The new iPhone SE looks a lot like the iPhone 8.
Angela Lang/CNET.
But there are 2 small distinctions about the phones. One is that the iPhone 8 still has 3D Touch The function debuted in 2015 in the iPhone 6S, enabling you to gain access to additional menu choices and commands by hard-pressing your finger versus the screen. Apple began to phase out the function in 2018 with the iPhone XR and it’s now absent from new iPhones. Instead, the company changed 3D Touch with Haptic Touch Haptic Touch is on the iPhone SE and works fairly the same way, other than rather of needing to press down harder on the screen, you’ll need to simply long-press on the product.
2nd, the iPhone 8 comes in black, white and gold– but inventory is limited depending upon the merchant so you might find even less options. The iPhone SE, on the other hand, is readily available now and can be found in black, white and red.
Video camera: iPhone SE has some covert extras
The iPhone SE and iPhone 8 both have a 12- megapixel rear camera and a 7-megapixel front-facing shooter, with the exact same apertures on each (f/1.8 and f/2.2, respectively). These consist of:
- Portrait Mode and Depth Control for taking and changing bokeh images
- Smart HDR, to improve highlights and shadows
- Red-eye correction
- Quicktake, which lets you rapidly record video without tapping out of Picture mode
- Video improvements: Extended vibrant range for 30 fps; 3x digital zoom (the iPhone 8 has 2x); cinematic video stabilization for 4K video (the iPhone 8 has it just up to 1080 p) and stereo recording
- Front-facing electronic camera: Portrait mode and cinematic video stabilization up to 1080 p (the iPhone 8 has none)
Entirely, iPhone SE catches much better quality pictures and video than the iPhone 8, and at times takes pictures equally equivalent to the iPhone11
Processor, battery, dual-SIM and memory
The iPhone SE is geared up with Apple’s most current proprietary A13 Bionic chip, the same one that’s inside the iPhone 11 flagship. When we ran processing efficiency speeds on 3DMark and Geekbench 5, the iPhone SE clocked in similar outcomes with the iPhone 11, which is to state that the iPhone SE also performed comparably– and sometimes much better than– the Galaxy S20, Pixel 4 and the OnePlus 8 Pro And compared to the iPhone 8, the iPhone SE’s outcome for 3DMark’s Ice Storm Limitless test was miles above the iPhone 8’s (97,415 compared to the iPhone 8’s 62,206 score).
Apple’s A13 processor.
Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET.
Apple never divulges its iPhones’ battery capacities, so when it revealed the iPhone SE, all it stated was that it was the very same as the iPhone 8. When we ran our battery tests for video playback on Plane mode, the iPhone SE lasted longer than the iPhone 8 by almost 2 hours.
In addition, the iPhone SE has choices for a nano-SIM and an e-SIM, indicating you can manage 2 phone numbers on the exact same phone.
